Research On The Film Business Of The Commercial Press

With publishing system reform going further and digital technology developing fast, it is necessary and possible for publishers to take cross-industry, cross-region and cross-ownership operations. Take the Phoenix Publishing & Media Group for example, it is extending the industrial chain, integrating the high-quality resources and investing on real estate, trade, cultural malls, media platform of information services and cultural CBD projects. Both the sales revenue and net assets of the Phoenix Publishing & Media Group have been over tens of billions.However, there are many problems for the domestic publishing groups in their diversification processes. They desperately need to learn from the peers. In this context, it has a special significance to study on the film business of the Commercial Press which started almost a hundred years ago. The establishment of the Commercial Press is an important milestone in publishing history and cultural history, thus the revelation we get for cross media and diversification activities of publishing groups today through researching on this subject can not be ignored.The thesis studied on the foundation, development, operating characteristics and productions of the Commercial Press's film business. Based on this, it brought in the theories and research ideas of cross media and diversification management, then analysed the interaction between the publishing business and the film business inside the Commercial Press. The contribution and shortage of the Commercial Press's film business were discussed later. At last, a brief suggestion was given to the publishing enterprises nowadays for cross-media activities.The thesis consists of seven parts.PartⅠ:Introduction. In this part, the research background, significance, and the situation of study were presented first. Then pointed out the train of thought, methods and innovation. Besides, it also introduced the theories of diversification and cross media management.PartⅡ:Brief history of the Commercial Press's film business. It was divided into three parts:the start-up period, the motion picture section period and the Guoguang film company period. Things like evolution, size, personnel, and institutions of each period were all discussed here.PartⅢ:Operating characteristics of the Commercial Press. The summarized operating characteristics are the following five ones:a purpose to educate, a large capital investment, attaching importance to exchanging with foreign countries, producing and selling movies by itself and producing movies for other companies.PartⅣ:An analysis on the movies produced by the Commercial Press. Firstly, this part introduced the five main kinds of movies and the evolution among them. Later the positive evaluation and negative evaluation in the society at that time were brought in and researched.PartⅤ:The interaction between publishing business and film business inside the Commercial Press. It was studied from two aspects:publish business provided a basis for film business, the resources were integrated between publish business and film business.PartⅥ:The contribution and shortage of the Commercial Press's film business. On one hand, here we summed up its contribution to publishing industry, film industry and the community. On the other hand, the reasons why the film business ended after ten years were discussed in three aspects:the change of the film industry, the impact from the Commercial Press's management level and the defects of the film department itself.PartⅦ:Conclusion. We had a brief review of the research, pointed out the inadequacies and made some suggestions for the diversification and cross-media activities of the publishing enterprises today.It is hoped that this paper makes contribution to the publishing history and today's publishing practice in some degree.